


Don't you wanna be someone (but better)?

by FierceWingsHawks



Series: BASIC ENGLISH!? by Me [22]
Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble Collection, Family Dynamics, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Retrospective, Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, Work In Progress, i need to learn how to tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28745706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FierceWingsHawks/pseuds/FierceWingsHawks
Summary: There's nothing you can do for themThere's nothing you can say to herI am without a heartAnd the space has beenbrokenBut even if it’s broken, no one is saying that you can’t try to fix it, right?[Not really connected one-shots, but all of them would mention guilt, forgiveness, and how some relationship still stand even if they shouldn’t]
Relationships: Murdoc Niccals & Noodle, Murdoc Niccals & Stuart "2D" Pot, Russel Hobbs & Murdoc Niccals & Noodle & Stuart "2D" Pot
Series: BASIC ENGLISH!? by Me [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1313852
Kudos: 7





	1. occhiolism

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [The Lost Chord](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJVV8o6vgso), I ended up listening to Plastic Beach, which makes me ended up listening to all the discography and watching all the videos... again. AND reading almost everything I could found in here, so yeah...  
> First time writing on the fandom, so for sure, there is gonna be OOC; I apologize.  
> On another note, I'm not English, or even an English speaker perse, so I don't really know slang and stuff, so again, apologize.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [occhiolism](https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/95735249861/occhiolism)   
>  _n. the awareness of the smallness of your perspective, by which you couldn’t possibly draw any meaningful conclusions at all, about the world or the past or the complexities of culture, because although your life is an epic and unrepeatable anecdote, it still only has a sample size of one, and may end up being the control for a much wilder experiment happening in the next room._

She was resting her back on the wall, still looking at the door. She still can’t hear anything else coming from it since it closed just a day after the last encounter with one of those portals. Her fingers twitched, wanting to have something there, being a cigarette or the strings of her guitar. She hears a sound, footsteps, but she knows that isn’t coming from inside.

“Are you still here?” She looks at her side, where 2D is getting closer to her.

“Yes,” she says.

“You should be resting.”

“I’m not a kid anymore, Stu.” Because she doesn’t have a bedtime anymore, and even if everyone around her were older, she was an adult now.

“I know,” 2D says, looking guilty, and that wasn’t her intention, but 2D continues talking, “but you have been here every night, Noodles.” She can't say anything against it, but she shrugs, not giving that much importance to that aspect, and looks at the door again; 2D should know why she is waiting.

She tries to live her life in the day because, as she said, she is an adult, she has stuff to do, but she goes through the hallway from time to time, watching the door, hoping that the next time the door is open. But like those last days, it still isn’t.

It's in the night, when it’s time to go back to her room and sleep for a couple of hours when she takes a couple of hours to wait for something to happen, if those hours happened to be more than the ones she sleeps in, she doesn’t mind. 2D from the other part-

“I could take your place if you want to,” he says. She looks at him because it’s not the first time he says that. She shakes her head because 2D can fell asleep anywhere, meaning that for sure he would sleep just right there. She yawns without wanting to, not helping her case. “I promise I’m not gonna fall asleep.” He says, knowing what she was thinking and how she is the one that needs to asleep.

Noodle scowls, looking at the door to look at him, “fine.” And he takes it as a win. He watches her walk down the corridor to get on the stairs and going up to her room; he takes her place and watches the door, not hoping anything but questioning himself why he should care. But he knows why.

He had talked about it with his therapist, _Stockholm Syndrome,_ she called it, he still doesn’t get the definition of that, and trying to understand it makes him feel dizzy. He prefers not to put a name because it is what it is. The thing that made him came back even after the fiasco of what he went through in Plastic Beach, staying when _he_ got out of prison, and even now when he decided to go back, for _him_. 

He thinks how maybe nobody would have blamed him if he decided not to go back, not Russel or even Noodle, and that thought makes him shiver because he is not a cruel person, neither of them is, and leaving someone to die is a cruel thing. He _wants_ to think that he just came back because he isn’t cruel, but it’s because he cares, and he knows that Noodle does too when she is the one that has been every night since that day waiting outside the door. Nobody would have blamed her either if she didn’t care, but she still did.

He let out a yawn, feeling so tired of thinking too much about this again. He promised not to fall asleep, but he knows he loses the battle with the sleep when he slides on the wall to the ground, ended up on his ass. It’s not the best place to sleep, but he ended up in worse places.

He knows it hasn't passed so much time; he feels like he just closed his eyes-

“What are you doing here?” He jumps a little even if Murdoc's voice is in a whisper, something weird of him.

He notices how light comes from the room behind him and that Murdoc's body is covering his eyes from it. He looks up, trying to focus on the fact that his body it's just shadowed because of the obscurity of the hall and the light coming from behind, and that image scares him for a second, making him swallow saliva instead of answering.

He expects a kick or a hit or something after listening to Murdoc's grunt, but the bassist just got in a squat to ended up eye to eye with him. Because he follows him down, the light doesn’t hit his eyes completely, but he still closes them because of how close Murdoc was, so close that the second he could see, he notices the tired look.

“Well?” Murdoc says annoyed, but not mad.

“I was...” takes a breath, trying to order his words, "waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” And that’s the longest conversation between them without insults, grunts, sarcasm, and just both of them at each other throats recently.

“For you to come out,” he says, and Murdoc chuckles like it is funny, but it isn’t. Noodle was worried sick.

He is frowning now, but Murdoc wasn’t even looking at him. He was looking at the end of the corridor with an expression that reminds him of Plastic Beach when he found Murdoc playing Broken on his bass one night of insomnia, the cause that made him send Cyborg locking him out on his room. A look that makes him seem... vulnerable.

He is holding his breath and his words, waiting for Murdoc to move, to act.

“Noodle shouldn’t have chosen _you_ to watch the door; she knows well how you can sleep anywhere,” and he wants to ask, _how do you know that?_ Like they haven’t lived together for years.

He bites his tongue before answering something witty because Murdoc still has that same look, and his voice is soft. He waits some seconds more to see Murdoc move from in front of him to end up next to him. Murdoc's arm brushes his making him tense, which the other ignores when he doesn’t leave any space between them.

He should move, but he didn’t notice he was cold until the warm body next to him gives him some. He looks down at his shoelaces undone, something that Murdoc notices where his eyes ended up because he chuckles, looking at his shoes. His eyes look tired, and his face is tense even if he has a little smile.

They are so close at that moment, as the closeness on the sinking Plastic Beach when they were trying to get through the portal.

He remembers how Murdoc grab him by his middle to help him up, how he smiled smugly at him because Murdoc was helping _him_ because _he cares-_

That makes him look at the floor.

_Does he really?_ he asks himself like he always does since he woke up from his coma thanks to going through a windshield; the answer he always wants is _yes_ , even if it always ended up being _no_ or at least the majority of the time.

He feels something falling on his shoulder, and he almost screams but ends up just making an alarming sound to look at his side and ended up with Murdoc's hair on his nose. He blinks, trying to decipher what is going and has to pass some seconds before hearing Murdoc's snores and understanding that Murdoc fell asleep on him.

He blinks again, thinking about how uncomfortable position the bassist was in when he is the one taller. Then, other more important thing cross his mind.

Murdoc was sleeping on him.

Not because he was drunk, high, or something, because Murdoc himself decide it, like even if the other were completely exhausted -that wouldn’t surprise him with the look on his face- Murdoc doesn’t just sleep in front of people or even out of his room.

He bites his lips, feeling anxious without sleep left on him, trying to think what that means.

He gets to nothing even after the sun is up, and he begins to hear the noise coming from outside of the hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I'm a slut(?) for family dynamics and for some reason my favorite character ended up being Murdoc????? So, yeah, I want people to worry and care about him.  
> Sorry not sorry.


	2. avenoir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [avenoir](https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/103388659265/avenoir-n-the-desire-that-memory-could-flow)   
>  _n. the desire that memory could flow backward._   
>  _We take it for granted that life moves forward. But you move as a rower moves, facing backwards: you can see where you’ve been, but not where you’re going. And your boat is steered by a younger version of you. It’s hard not to wonder what life would be like facing the other way…_

There was this question. 

A hypothetical question, and it’s thrown at him because... _because-_

“If you could travel in time, what point of **your** history would you chose and why?”

His smile tense. “And I was planning to go do drugs with Mick Jagger or something.” The interviewer fakes a laugh trying to be courteous for sure, and he knows that his bandmates are rolling their eyes. “Well...” he stops, stays silent for a moment, not because he doesn’t know the answer, he knows the answer perfectly. He thought about it before, he tried to sold a soul that doesn’t has anymore to make it possible. It’s just an act. “Before all _this_ ,” he says, moving his hand. “Before the interviews, and the tours, the concerts, and the fame. Before the band.” He says, and there is a tense silence from his band and the interviewer, but she looks interested, and he doesn’t know how _they_ look.

He makes a move with his hand, indicating that she could continue. “Why?” She ask simply, choosing her curiosity over her professionalism. She would have ask more questions if that were the case.

He shrugs, not wanting or planning to give a clear answer. “I don’t know, wanting to see how the world is without Gorillaz. You know, see how much we change it because we did. Fucking hell we did.” He says, laughing like a maniac and smiling his always sharp smile, making the tension disappears.

He doesn't say how it's one of the reasons; the other is to see how the other members of the band's life ended up without him messing their lives.

Maybe 2D became a famous musician anyway, with a more normal look -his eyes intact-, and acting more securely like how he is recently.

Maybe Russel ended up living a calm life after getting rid of his ghosts.

Maybe Noodle ended up being the murder machine that she was made to, or maybe she ended up on another porch in a carton box.

He doesn’t know, and thinking about it, he wouldn’t care. Not when he would be dead already, because of booze or drugs, or because his dad loses his temper to be murder by him. Who knows?

Not him, no matter how much he wants to happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just think that it looks like Murdoc is having the redemption that I thought Jaime didn't want to give him?  
> I don't know... I saw so much discord because of how Murdoc acted on the last videos, but like damn, I don't want Murdoc and 2D to be friendly to each other-


End file.
